Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children by Tom Farrey
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(Hardcover)
- Pub. Date: May 2008
- 384pp
- Sales Rank: 151,561
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: May 2008
- Publisher: ESPN
- Format: Hardcover, 384pp
- Sales Rank: 151,561
- ISBN-13: 9781933060460
- ISBN: 1933060468
Synopsis
A first-of-its-kind investigative book on the least examined and most important topic in sports today.
Youth sports isn't just orange slices and all-star trophies anymore. It's 14-year-olds who enter high school with a decade of football experience, 9-year-olds competing for national baseball championships, 5-year-old golfers who shoot par, and toddlers made from sperm donated (for a fee) by elite college athletes. It's a year-round "travel team" in every community--and parents who fear that not making the cut in grade school will cost their kid the chance to play in high school. In short, a landscape in which performance often matters more than participation, all the way down to peewee basketball.
Much as Fast Food Nation challenged our eating habits and Silent Spring rewired how we think about the environment, Tom Farrey's Game On will forever change the way we look at this desperate culture besotted by the example of Tiger Woods. An Emmy award-winning reporter, Farrey examines the lives of child athletes and the consequences of sorting the strong from the weak at ever earlier ages: fewer active kids, testier sidelines, rising obesity rates, and U.S. national teams that rarely win world titles.
He dives into the world of these games that are played by more than 30 million boys and girls, and along the way uncovers some surprising truths. When the very best athletes enter organized play. The best approach to coaching them. And the powerful influence of wealth and genetics. Farrey has written a surprising, alarming, thoughtful, and ultimately empowering book for anyone who wants the best for the newest generation of Americans, asathletes and citizens.
Tim Delaney - Library Journal
Farrey, a senior writer with ESPN The Magazineand an ESPN television correspondent, here discusses what he sees as troubling issues with youth sports today. These include an overemphasis on winning, the increasingly overly organized nature of youth sports leagues, and the development of national championships. Farrey is troubled by the reality that college basketball programs are now recruiting ten-year-olds, that today's youths get "burned out" by sports at an early age, and that many parents become preoccupied with the belief that their child may be the next Tiger Woods. Although Farrey provides a nice review of the current state of affairs in youth sports, this reviewer, a sport sociologist, is troubled by his stated belief that these topics have never been discussed before. In actuality, sport sociologists have been discussing these same topics for many years. Thus, there is really nothing new here; for libraries devoid of other current books on youth sports.
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
Tom Farrey is an investigative journalist whose work has been recognized for excellence in print, on television, and online. A correspondent with ESPN's prime-time newsmagazine E:60, he also has reported on air for ESPN's Outside the Lines and SportsCenter, as well as for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine, where he is a senior writer. He joined ESPN in 1996, after eight years with The Seattle Times. In 2007, he was one of seven journalists selected among the 100 Most Influential Sports Educators in America by the Institute for International Sport at the University of Rhode Island. His reports have won many honors, including two Emmy awards for Outstanding Sports Journalism. Farrey lives in Connecticut with his wife, Christine, and their three children, Cole, Anna, and Kellen. This is his first book.
Customer Reviews
Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Childrenby Anonymous
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June 27, 2008: I just found out that this book existed. Back in 2005 Tom Farrey covered my son's basketball team at the 8-U AAU National Championship Tournament in Memphis, TN. I remember reading his article on ESPN.com, but had no idea that a book was going to be published. Some friends and fellow basketball coaches in our area recently told me about the book. I believe my son is mentioned in Chapter 8. A lot of people thought that we were crazy for taking seven 8 year olds across the nation to a basketball tournament. That turned out to be one of the best trips ever. My son has benefitted so much from that experience. It is now almost three years later and Jason is still playing basketball and is still on the honor roll. In fact, he is one of the better players in his age group in Northern CA. I can't wait to read this book!
Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Childrenby Anonymous
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April 18, 2008: Tom Farrey did his homework. In the tradition of quality investigative journalism, he uses past research on youth sports to inform his provocative and insightful critique of the increasingly organized sports that involve many young people today. In the process, he extends what we know, raises new questions, and presents a cogent analysis that will resonate with anyone who has invested time, money, and energy into youth sports?or plans to do so in the future. After teaching and doing research in the sociology of sport for thirty-five years, I know that academic research has only limited influence on how youth sports are organized and played in the United States. For me, Game On is an accessible and sensible book that will add needed depth to popular discourse on sports in the lives of our children. Farrey engages readers and raises critical issues without provoking defensiveness. He uses his investigative skills and ESPN?s cache to garner interesting examples and quotes from interviews with experts worldwide. He doesn?t provide a recipe for transforming the physical condition and activities of our children, but his recommendations will inspire parents, teachers, youth coaches, and program administrators to think more critically about youth sports and what they could and should be in the United States.
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